20 EAST KENT NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



owing to numerous oblong corpuscles, very variable in size, but 

 those of average magnitude were each about ^i- of an inch long 

 and -^-^ broad. They were individually of an intensely deep red 

 colour, and all readily soluble in weak acetic acid, though thej' 

 retained their form distinctly for many days in water, being not at 

 all soluble therein. On dissection th« seat of these curious red 

 bodies seemed to be within the alimentary caeca. There were also 

 many minute molecules in the fluid. This remarkable Arach- 

 nid has long been known in the dark recesses of our time- 

 honoured fane, and regarded there as an " Insect peculiar to 

 Canterbury Cathedral." The verger, who gave some of them to 

 Mr. Pullagar, so described them ; aud of these my father kept 

 a few quite without food, in a tin box, for upwards of five months, 

 during the whole of which time they continued lively, and ever 

 ready, when touched, to sham death, after the manner of verit- 

 able spiders. As we could not identify the Cathedral arachnid 

 with any specific description, and were told by some of the most 

 eminent British entomologists that our specimens were nothing 

 but starved sheep-ticks, I took one of them up to Oxford at the 

 beginning of last term, when the illustrious entomologist, Prof. 

 Westwood, declared, and was the first to determine, it to be the 

 Argas reflexus, a parasite infesting pigeons, and known on the 

 Continent, but heretofore not recognised in Britain. So our 

 arachnids had probably dropped from tliese birds, and are cer- 

 tainly to be found rather plentifully crawling about the inside of 

 the base of the cathedral. 



